Tradition · dhrupad gharana
Darbhanga gharana
The Darbhanga gharana of dhrupad is the Maithil-Bihari branch of the tradition, patronised by the Darbhanga Raj from the eighteenth century onward and traced in its own accounts to Radhakrishna and Kartaram, grandsons of Tansen's son. Its style is distinguished by a slow, measured alap and complex laykari, and the Mallik family — of Ram Chatur, Vidur and their descendants — is its principal living line.
- Function
- Arts & performance
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (1)
- PatronageMithilā / Darbhanga
The Darbhanga Raj patronised dhrupad from the eighteenth century onward, drawing musicians into the Maithil capital and keeping them there across generations of the Mallik family. Darbhanga is where the Maithil-Bihari branch of Tansen's line took its distinctive shape. The town is thus the physical anchor of a tradition otherwise held only in family transmission, and its raj estate is where the singing itself was regularly performed.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, "Darbhanga gharana"; Sangeet Natak Akademi and IGNCA oral-history collections; Bonnie Wade and the standard gharana literature.
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